D.B. Cooper Jumped Out of a Plane and Vanished

Part 1: The Perfect Crime — Almost

The D.B. Cooper case is often called the perfect crime. That's not quite right. It was a perfect disappearance. Whether it was a perfect crime depends on whether Cooper survived.

On the afternoon of November 24, 1971 — the day before Thanksgiving — a man described as white, mid-forties, about 5'10" to 6'0", 170 to 180 pounds, walked up to the Northwest Orient Airlines ticket counter at Portland International Airport. He bought a one-way ticket to Seattle, paying $20 cash, under the name Dan Cooper.

(The name "D.B. Cooper" was a media error. A reporter confused the hijacker's alias with a suspect named D.B. Cooper who was quickly cleared. The wrong name stuck.)

He boarded Boeing 727-051, registration N467US, Flight 305. Thirty-six passengers. Six crew. He took seat 18C — back row, right side, next to the window. He ordered a bourbon and soda, lit a Raleigh cigarette, and waited.

Part 2: The Hijacking

At approximately 2:50 PM, Cooper handed flight attendant Florence Schaffner a folded note. She assumed it was a man's phone number — an occupational hazard for young flight attendants in 1971 — and put it in her pocket without reading it.

Cooper leaned over. His voice was calm. "Miss, you'd better look at that note. I have a bomb."

The note, which Schaffner later described from memory (Cooper made her return it), read approximately: I have a bomb in my briefcase. I will use it if necessary. I want you to sit next to me.

Cooper showed the briefcase to another flight attendant, Tina Mucklow. Inside: eight red cylinders attached to wires and a large cylindrical battery. Whether it was a real bomb was never determined — the briefcase went out the plane with him.

His demands were specific: $200,000 in "negotiable American currency" (twenties), four parachutes (two main, two reserve), and a fuel truck standing by in Seattle. He was knowledgeable, precise, and never raised his voice.

Part 3: The Money

The FBI had approximately two hours while the plane circled Puget Sound to assemble the ransom. They made two critical decisions during this time.

First, they assembled the money exclusively from the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco — all twenties, all with serial numbers beginning with "L" (San Francisco's Fed designation). This made the bills identifiable but still spendable.

Second — and this was the move that should have cracked the case — they microfilmed every single bill. All 10,000 notes. Every serial number recorded and distributed to banks, casinos, and law enforcement agencies worldwide.

If Cooper ever spent a single bill, the FBI would know.

Part 4: The Jump

At 5:24 PM, Flight 305 landed at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport. Cooper released the passengers and two flight attendants. The fuel truck filled the tanks. The money and parachutes were delivered via the aft stairs.

Cooper inspected the parachutes. He selected a military-issue front reserve (NB6) and a back-mounted main chute (a Pioneer container with a military canopy). He rejected one of the reserves — which was, in fact, a non-functional training dummy with a sewn-shut canopy. Whether he identified it as a dummy or simply preferred the other is unknown.

He cut the shroud lines from the reserve chute he rejected and used them to fashion a bag, tying the money to his body. This suggested parachute experience — a novice would not think to use shroud lines.

Cooper ordered the pilots to fly to Mexico City: gear down, flaps at 15 degrees, airspeed below 200 knots, altitude below 10,000 feet, and rear airstair lowered. The pilots informed him this configuration wouldn't reach Mexico; he agreed to refuel in Reno.

At 7:40 PM, Flight 305 took off from SeaTac. At 8:13 PM, the cockpit instruments registered a sudden pressure bump and the aircraft's nose pitched slightly upward — the rear staircase had been deployed and someone had stepped off it.

Somewhere over the rugged, heavily forested terrain near the Lewis River in southwest Washington, Dan Cooper jumped into the night.

Part 5: The Investigation

The FBI launched NORJAK — the Northwest Hijacking case — which became one of the most exhaustive criminal investigations in American history.

The initial search was hampered by the fact that they didn't know exactly where Cooper jumped. The flight crew had been instructed to stay in the cockpit with the door closed. Cooper was alone in the cabin. The pressure bump at 8:13 PM gave a general time, but the estimated drop zone covered a massive area of dense Pacific Northwest forest.

Ground searches, air patrols, and military sweeps of the suspected landing area turned up nothing. No body. No parachute. No briefcase. No money.

The FBI investigated over 800 suspects over the following decades. The most notable:

Richard Floyd McCoy Jr. — A Vietnam War helicopter pilot and Green Beret who hijacked a United Airlines 727 just five months after Cooper, using almost identical methods. He demanded $500,000, parachuted out over Utah, and was caught two days later. McCoy was convicted and later killed during a prison escape. The FBI never formally linked him to Cooper, though the similarities are staggering.

Kenneth Christiansen — A former Army paratrooper and Northwest Orient purser who matched the physical description and had intimate knowledge of the 727. His brother claimed Kenneth confessed on his deathbed, but the FBI noted he was too short (5'8") and too light (150 lbs) to match the crew's description.

Robert Rackstraw — A Vietnam veteran, experienced skydiver, and convicted con man. A journalist named Tom Colbert spent years building a circumstantial case against Rackstraw, including coded letters supposedly sent to newspapers. Rackstraw denied involvement and was never charged.

Part 6: The Money on the Beach

The case might have faded into folklore if not for an eight-year-old boy named Brian Ingram.

On February 10, 1980, Brian was digging a fire pit on the sandy north bank of the Columbia River at a spot called Tena Bar, about nine miles downstream of Vancouver, Washington. His hand hit something in the sand: three packets of heavily deteriorated $20 bills, held together with rubber bands.

Total: $5,800 in twenties. The serial numbers matched Cooper's ransom.

The bills were partially dissolved, with edges eaten away by water and sediment. They were buried about three feet below the surface in a layer of sand consistent with being deposited by river action.

This raised more questions than it answered. Tena Bar is roughly 20 miles southwest of Cooper's estimated drop zone — far from where the money should have been if Cooper had landed with it. How did it get to the river? Did Cooper lose it during the jump? Did he bury it and the river eroded it out? Did someone else find it and dump it?

Part 7: Did He Survive?

This is the question that keeps the case alive. And the honest answer is: we don't know.

The case for survival:

• Cooper demonstrated knowledge of the 727, parachuting, and ransom negotiation that suggested training and planning
• He specifically requested a military-grade parachute and correctly identified a dummy reserve
• He fashioned a money bag from shroud lines — a technique requiring parachute experience
• The lack of a body in repeated searches of the drop zone suggests he may have landed safely and walked out

The case against survival:

• He jumped at night, in a freezing rainstorm, over unmapped wilderness, wearing a business suit and loafers
• The terrain below included dense old-growth forest, steep ravines, and the Lewis River
• He had no survival gear, no map, no flashlight
• The wind chill at jump speed was approximately -30C
• Only $5,800 of the $200,000 was ever recovered — if he survived, why didn't he spend the rest?

The most likely scenario, according to many experts, is that Cooper died in the jump or shortly after landing — from exposure, drowning in the Lewis River, or impact with the forest canopy. The money may have separated from him during the descent and eventually washed into the Columbia River system.

But "most likely" isn't "certain." And that's why, more than fifty years later, people are still looking.

Dan Cooper — whoever he was — stepped off the back of a Boeing 727 into a storm and into history. He left behind a clip-on tie, two of four parachutes, 66 unidentified fingerprints, a cigarette butt, and $194,200 in serial-numbered bills that have never been found.

He might be buried in the mud of the Lewis River. He might have died of exposure in the Oregon woods. Or he might have walked out, buried the money, and lived the rest of his life as someone else entirely.

We will probably never know. And that's what makes D.B. Cooper the most captivating criminal mystery of the twentieth century.